Bob Sznarwakowski and his family had a tough few years in the 1930s, but things were looking up by the time Bob turned 18 in March 1944 and registered for the draft. The family had recently moved into a new home at 16076 Liberal Avenue and Bob had a good job at Gar Wood Industries. In scanning and restoring some old photos recently, I found one of Bob, home on leave from the Army – he enlisted in July 1944 – sitting on the front steps of the home on Liberal Avenue.
I have used Google Street View to take a walk through various family locations as I compile family stories (and have a custom map of the places Bob lived), but Detroit is sadly so changed that many of the homes are no longer standing. There is a type of time travel Street View has enabled – in this case going back to 2008 – that lets you see different images Google has captured, which showed the sad decline of the home on Liberal Avenue, along with others on that street. In addition to Detroit’s economic woes, the 2007-9 financial crisis apparently played a part as homes were being actively maintained in 2009 – putting new cement in the driveway – and then were boarded up by 2011.
This series of images showed a very sad end for a home that had started out being lavished with attention. A family story about Bob tells that he came home on leave while serving in the Army during World War II to find his mother, Monica, had been putting money deducted from his pay and sent to her towards the garden instead of the mortgage! He took temporary work on leave to earn money to bring the mortgage up to date so they wouldn’t lose this home. I have to believe memories of the financial struggles of the 1930s were still fresh and it says so much about Bob’s commitment to loved ones that he put mother and home above having some fun on leave.
Here’s a slide show of Liberal Avenue over the years, starting with another old family photo from 1944, with Bob and two friends standing on the street near his new home (Bob’s on the left). The viewpoint isn’t the same as the Street View images as I had no clear reference points. You’ll note many other homes were demolished around 16076 Liberal, but parts of the street have survived (unlike many others in Detroit). Zillow shows a sale in May 2007 for just over $80K – peak of the housing bubble – and it had this to say about the empty lot at 16076 Liberal:
16076 Liberal St, Detroit, MI is a single family home that contains 680 sq ft and was built in 1943. It contains 1 bathroom. This home last sold for $3,001 in February 2013.
RIP 16076 Liberal Avenue, Detroit, Michigan
